Analogy Without Hyperbole

As everyone now know, Senator Durbin, wingnut from Illinois, said: ""If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings."
Here is what he had read just before that:

“When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [Guantanamo Bay] — I almost hesitate to put them in the Record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

‘On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold . . . . On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.’"

Obviously, we can find analogies that work better than the Nazis, who placed Jews and other "undesirables" in concentrations and forced labor camps, experimented on and killed around 6 million Jews and 5 million other "undesirables," or the Soviet gulags where political prisoners were sent to labor camps and executed, resulting in the death of 20-30 million people, and Pol Pot who used forced labor camps to torture, starve and kill 1.5-2.0 million Cambodians. Thus far, there have been zero (for you Durbin voters, the number "zero" is equivilent to a "0") deaths at Gitmo. In fact, when we first released some Gitmo prisoners a few years ago, we had to give them new cloths because they had put on weight. So let's interpret without Democratic hyperbole and angst, if we may.

"A detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor."

I can see why this would bother a Democrat. By being put into a fetal position, the detainee clearly believed that he was going to be chopped up and vacuumed out of the room. Or, if his head was too large, he would have his brains sucked out with a needle before removal from the interrogation room.

"The air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold ."

He was being treated just like Mrs. KJ when she doesn't notice that KJ has changed the thermostat.

"On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees."

He was being treated like Alabama school children in the 1960s.

"He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night."

More likely he was like my uncle. We call him "Comb-over Bobby."

"On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room."

It was like being stuck in the room next to my teen-aged kids and their friends.

See, with a little work, even a Democrat can be forced to use realistic analogies.